And you're probably smart enough to know that the forum would be full of 'post deleted due to swearing/trolling/spamming/ whatever' posts, which would benefit no one unless we left the original post there for everyone to see. Knowing what rule was broken won't help if you can't read the message. Our system is designed to send an email to everyone on the receiving end of a moderator action, though I need to check how reliable this is.

I posted a comment regarding Amazon's tax strategy. It was deleted. The first I knew of the deletion was to read the topic again. It wasn't trollish nor abusive, merely a comment. I received no notification that my response had been removed. Additionally, you left an entire topic regarding this subject untouched by "moderators".

The new moderators have been encouraged to interact via PM with offenders to avoid them making the same mistake again.

Then again, 'learning from mistakes' is not something we see a lot of here.

With regard to the 2 words "mistakes" and "here" when put together.....

I don't know if you've ever received warnings, bans, deletions etc, but if you had, would it alter your behaviour?

I have and yes. As you are aware.

I should add that moderating these forums is thankless task that can leave you seriously disillusioned about human nature. We fight constant battles with spammers, flamers, trolls and miscellaneous trouble-makers, often in our own time, wherever we may be, and these particularl contentious actions (removing threads you didn't agree broke any rules) represent a tiny minority.

I don't think that's true. A number of years ago in the Leica forum I posted a self-portrait - a LINK with a warning as to its content. It was summarily deleted - again with no notification. And I 'complained' on several occasions about the the revolting abuse aimed at me by a member of the KM forum but these complaints were all ignored and the seriously unpleasant abuse continued. I think your moderators have a list of posters who they can and will try to discourage by deleting their posts. That's just an opinion.

Seriously if we just left all the porn, threats of violence, rants, spam and other assorted nastiness in you'd be crying out for moderation (or you'd never visit again).

Probably would but by all means delete the porn, spam etc. without notification. I would include "threats of violence" as well but since DPR ignored those aimed at me, well......